Led Zeppelin (Official Thread)

gcczep

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Good Times Bad Times Part 3

Led Zeppelin had started as an idea, and was now despised as one. But why did people really hate Led Zeppelin? The rock ’n’ roll of the counterculture had been supposed to change the world and hadn’t. Maybe you blamed Dylan’s motorcycle, maybe you blamed Yoko or Paul or Nixon or the Hells Angels. Now you could blame Led Zeppelin, as “All You Need Is Love” had given way to “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love.” They represented someone’s cynical fantasy of the masses, a coalition of louts and groupies and wasted youths who, come to think of it, probably weren’t even reading rock criticism in the first place. The revolution had failed, and Zeppelin was playing its wake, and cashing in—the amount of money they made was an obsessive topic in coverage of the band (“Led Zeppelin and How They Made 37,000 Dollars in One Night,” blared a 1969 headline). Rock ’n’ roll had once been art for art’s sake, or the world’s sake: now it was just art for money’s sake, and Page & co. didn’t even have the decency to pretend otherwise.

And then Led Zeppelin blew everything up, again. Led Zeppelin III, released in October 1970, opened with “Immigrant Song,” a screeching, pummeling anthem about Viking invaders. The only way “Immigrant Song” could have sounded more like a parody of Led Zeppelin is if it were seven minutes long as opposed to a mere (blessed) two and a half. If you hated Led Zeppelin, “Immigrant Song” confirmed everything you thought you knew, and you may have stopped listening there.

Led Zeppelin III debuted at No. 1 because it was a Led Zeppelin album, and then sales dropped, because—was it a Led Zeppelin album?

But anyone who didn’t stop there would have been surprised, and seriously confused. Led Zeppelin III was an album of real songs, enormous eclecticism, and startling beauty, and the album’s second side contained the finest collection of unplugged rock music this side of Beggars Banquet. “Gallows Pole” was a reworking of an ancient British ballad that boasted acoustic guitars, mandolin, and banjo, and built to a weird, modal rave-up of charging drums and a lush guitar solo. “That’s the Way” was gorgeous, worthy of inclusion on the Joni Mitchell and Fairport Convention albums the band was listening to with obsessive frequency.

And then there’s “Tangerine,” a song Page had written years earlier that’s probably the prettiest recording Led Zeppelin ever made. The 12-string guitar sparkles, Bonham plays with uncharacteristic sensitivity, and Plant sings Page’s lyrics with a vibrato that’s almost Presleyan (a stylistic departure so striking that one critic speculated it was a guest vocalist). “Tangerine” is one of only a handful of Zeppelin tracks that’s totally perfect, not a second too long, not a note unnecessary or out of place (“Hey Hey What Can I Do,” the phenomenal B-side to “Immigrant Song,” is another, although good luck finding it here—in too-clever-by-half fashion, Led Zeppelin left the best song they’d ever written off an album).

Led Zeppelin III was a shocking musical curveball and remains the strangest album in the band’s catalogue. It debuted at No. 1 because it was a Led Zeppelin album, and then sales dropped, because—was it a Led Zeppelin album? And it still didn’t garner the acclaim the band sought, met with confusion or dismissive contempt by writers who barely seemed to have listened to it. “It would be hard to imagine a popular musical organization that is any more consistently ugly than Led Zeppelin,” the New York Times declared, in the opening sentence of its review. The song remained the same, even when it didn’t at all.

* * *

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When victory did finally come for Led Zeppelin it came like everything else had—massively. In November 1971 Led Zeppelin released their fourth album, which bore no title but would soon come to be known as Led Zeppelin IV. It contained the band’s self-styled masterpiece, “Stairway to Heaven,” along with their actual masterpiece, “When the Levee Breaks.” Today Led Zeppelin IV is widely regarded as one of the finest albums ever made (Rolling Stone even liked it!) and has sold nearly 40 million copies. It cemented Led Zeppelin as the biggest band of the post-Beatles era, even if returns afterward were diminishing. 1973’s Houses of the Holy was a very good album that was a step down from the work that preceded it. 1975’s Physical Graffiti was a double album that would have been great had it been a single album. 1976’s Presence just wasn’t very good, and 1979’s In Through the Out Door wasn’t much better.

When John Bonham died in 1980 the band called it quits, but the Led Zeppelin idea endured. When This Is Spinal Tap premiered in 1984, the affectionate resemblance loomed larger than Stonehenge. In 1985 the notorious tell-all biography Hammer of the Gods was published and became as seminal a ninth-grade text as Of Mice and Men, despite the band insisting its tales of occult hijinks and hotel debauchery were grossly exaggerated (although the “Shark episode” Wikipedia entry swims on in infamy). In 1986 a trio of youngsters from New York released an album whose cover bore no small likeness to Led Zeppelin and opened with the drums from “When the Levee Breaks.” The Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill was Led Zeppelin for the kids of the people who’d bought Led Zeppelin, and those parents were appropriately appalled.

By the time Led Zeppelin were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 they’d faded into archetype, open-shirted lead singers and Les Pauls slung around the knees having long since lost their ability to be thrilling or crass. And the three surviving members of the band have aged remarkably gracefully, with Page taking his rightful place as a public intellectual of the electric guitar, Plant reinventing himself as a Grammy-winning interpreter of high-end Americana, and John Paul Jones enjoying the family life (he’s been with his wife since 1965) while occasionally joining other Zeppelin-ish supergroups. In fact, one of the most impressive achievements of the ex-members of Led Zeppelin is how deftly they’ve each disentangled themselves from Led Zeppelin. But they can’t really, no more than any of us can. That murderous burst of guitar that opened “Good Times Bad Times” did everything it was supposed to, and everything it wasn’t: It changed the world.
 

gcczep

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Zeppelin and The Edgewater Inn

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As much as ‘This is Spinal Tap‘ accurately lampooned a rock band on the road, it more or less left out some of the juicier aspects that take place on tour, such as wild sex with groupies and trashing hotel rooms. Fortunately for fans of the movie, there are the ‘Real-Life ‘Spinal Tap’ Stories‘ of Led Zeppelin.

In his new book, ‘I Killed Pink Floyd‘s Pig: Inside Stories of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll,’ former radio executive Beau Phillips collected 35 first-hand tales of rock excess. One of its stories deals with a couple of experiences Zeppelin had at Seattle’s Edgweater Hotel, even after they had been banned following one of the most infamous stories in rock history. Phillips gives us this exclusive excerpt below and we encourage you to check out the rest of his fine book, which includes a foreword by Sammy Hagar. You can learn more about it at his website, PinkFloydsPig.com.

When a band heads out on a concert tour, it can last months, sometimes years. Before long, the routine of being on the road gets old and cities all start looking the same. Band members spend countless hours in hotel rooms, and that’s when the craziness happens. With plenty of down time with which to amuse themselves, bands often seek out a little mischief.

In 1964, the Beatles’ tour passed through Seattle, and killed time by fishing from their windows at the Edgewater Hotel. True to its name, the Edgewater is perched on the water’s edge, built on a pier that extends over Puget Sound. At one time, the hotel encouraged guests to fish from the hotel rooms and even stocked a bait shop in the lobby. During their stay, the Beatles did some fishing, but came up empty.

After the Fab Four’s visit, the Edgewater became a local Beatles landmark, and the hotel took full advantage. The management removed the carpeting from the Beatles’ rooms, cut it into small squares and sold the remnants as souvenirs. The Edgewater still maintains a Beatles-themed suite and has hosted several Beatles-related events over the years.

Fast forward to 1969. The mighty Led Zeppelin was riding high following the release of its debut album. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page became instant rock heroes and set out on their first American tour. Like the Beatles, when the band rolled through Seattle, Led Zeppelin chose to stay at the Edgewater Hotel. And like the Beatles, they fished from their windows. A tale is told in days of old that the band reeled in a small fish, reportedly a mud shark. What happened next is permanently etched in rock lore.

Zeppelin’s road manager, Richard Cole, recalls an evening of rock n’ roll debauchery of mythic proportions. There are several accounts of what actually happened. But everyone agrees that the “mud shark incident” included naked groupies, fish, and body cavities. Cole is quoted in the Led Zeppelin biography ‘Hammer of the Gods’ as saying, “A pretty young groupie with red hair was disrobed and tied to the bed. Led Zeppelin then proceeded to stuff pieces of shark into her vagina and ******.” Accounts vary as to who was responsible [Editors note: In Gavin Edwards' 2006 book, 'Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton's Little John,' Carmine Appice of the Vanilla Fudge claims he and keyboardist Mark Stein were the main participants, with members of Led Zeppelin watching]. But when a mud shark was hauled into Led Zep’s hotel room, it got the attention of the hotel’s management. Not surprisingly, the fishing kerfuffle earned the group a lifetime ban from the Edgewater Hotel. Shortly after Led Zeppelin’s visit, the Edgewater Hotel closed its bait and tackle shop and ended their “fish from your window” campaign.

One thing is certain. The Beatles made the Edgewater Hotel famous. But Led Zeppelin made it infamous.

In 1977, eight years later, Led Zeppelin returned to Seattle and quietly checked into the Edgewater Hotel in the dead of night…while the city slept.

Wait! What about their lifetime ban?

The hotel manager at the time was named James Blum. He told me, “Somehow Led Zeppelin reserved rooms at the Edgewater and we didn’t catch it. There were no computer systems back then. And the band didn’t use their real names when booking rooms. So it got past us. Once the band’s entourage had checked in, we couldn’t just kick them out.”

The Edgewater manager hoped this visit would be less eventful. The hotel’s reputation took a beating after the mud shark incident, and its image was just recovering. He wanted to avoid any more embarrassment. Blum recalls, “In the spirit of goodwill, I called Led Zeppelin’s road manager, Richard Cole. He picked up his room phone, and I welcomed Led Zeppelin back to the Edgewater. I left it at that. Mr. Cole got the message that I knew they were staying at our hotel, despite being banned.” More than anything, Blum wanted Richard Cole to know that he’d be watching them.

During Led Zep’s return trip, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page didn’t fish. But they did make a big splash…five big splashes. On this visit, the band amused themselves by tossing televisions out of their hotel room windows into Puget Sound, then watching them bobbing in the water 15 feet below.

The former Edgewater manager fills in the details: “Everyone in Led Zeppelin’s entourage seemed to be behaving, as far as I could tell. Then, on the morning they were due to check out, I got a call from Celia, the hotel’s head housekeeper. I asked her, ‘Are the band’s hotel rooms still in good condition?’”

“She replied, ‘Yes, the rooms are fine. But the TVs are gone.’ ” Celia spoke with a thick accent. So Blum wasn’t sure that he’d heard her correctly and asked the housekeeper to repeat what she’d said.

Celia repeated, “The televisions are missing, in all five rooms.”

Blum shook his head and told her, “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

The Edgewater manager ran down the hallway and opened the door to one of Led Zeppelin’s hotel rooms. “I checked it from top to bottom. She was right, the TV was gone. Just then, a gust of wind blew back the drapes, and I realized the window was open. I walked to the window, pulled back the curtain and looked outside to find not one, but five television sets floating in Puget Sound.”

This wasn’t the first time that Led Zeppelin had been suspected of tossing televisions. They earned that reputation in the early ‘70s at the Continental Hyatt House on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where they reportedly also rode motorcycles down the hallways.

James Blum was speechless. “They did it again!” he muttered. The Edgewater manager walked back toward the lobby and instructed the desk clerk to buzz him when Led Zeppelin came to check out. A few minutes later, Richard Cole walked up to the front desk to settle the band’s bill…and Blum was waiting for him. He wanted to come unglued, but James calmly handed a stack of room bills to Zeppelin’s manager. The total for all of their rooms was about $3,000. The Edgewater manager recalls, “Richard casually reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick roll of cash and peeled off thirty $100 bills. He pushed the pile of cash across the counter toward me like he was buying a pack of gum.”

So far, so good. Blum didn’t want to provoke Cole. But he had to address the missing TVs. He swallowed hard and looked Led Zeppelin’s manager in the eye. In his most pleasant voice, Blum continued, “Mr. Cole, I must also charge you for those television sets that were thrown out of your hotel room windows.”

The road manager smirked and tried to hide his smile. “How many TVs did they toss out?”

“Five,” Blum answered. “At $500 per TV, we must charge you an additional $2,500.”

Blum expected Richard to go crazy. Instead, Cole chuckled to himself, reached back into his pocket and counted off 25 more Ben Franklins. Again, he slid the stack of bills across the counter…like it was nothing.

Meanwhile, the desk clerk was a young guy who’d been watching this transaction. His eyes widened at the sight of Richard Cole’s roll and how nonchalant he was about paying a $3,000 tab, in cash. Then piling up another $2,500. Who carries 55 $100 bills? Apparently, Zeppelin’s manager did. And he still had a few more left in his pocket.

With their hotel bill settled, Cole turned to walk away. Then the young desk clerk worked up the nerve and asked, “Excuse me, Mr Cole. I’ve heard that Led Zeppelin has a reputation for throwing TVs. But I thought it was BS. Can you tell me, what does it feel like to just toss a TV out of your window?”

Richard Cole stepped back toward the desk, stood in front of the young clerk and replied, “Kid, there are some things in life that you’ve got to experience for yourself.” With that, Cole reached back into his pocket and unrolled five more crisp $100s. He laid the cash on the counter, pushed them across to the clerk and said, “Here you go, mate. Go toss a TV courtesy of Led Zeppelin!”

Led Zeppelin’s entourage has not returned to the Edgewater Hotel since then. And I doubt that the hotel management saved the carpet squares from their rooms. But the legend lives on.
 

gcczep

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Parisian Plant

Courtesy of Uncut: The View From Here

Robert Plant And The Sensational Space Shifters, Le Bataclan, Paris, June 22, 2014
Review by Michael Bonner

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“Welcome to an evening of country and eastern,” smiles Robert Plant as he gestures expansively round this fabled Paris venue, taking in not just the lively capacity crowd gathered here tonight but also to his latest musical collaborators, The Sensational Space Shifters.

Plant's sly “country and eastern” pun is admittedly an excellent fit for the infectious, far-out collision of styles he’s currently investigating with the Space Shifters. Essentially a regrouping of the Strange Sensation band who played with him on the Dreamland and Mighty ReArranger albums, they are drawn from a number of diverse musical backgrounds and geographical locations. They include a member of an east London jazz co-operative, a trip hop veteran, the guitarist from a Britpop band and a Gambian ritti virtuoso. You could be forgiven for thinking that bringing together musicians from such radically different disciplines might prove incompatible. Yet, under Plant’s auspices, The Sensational Space Shifters are a flourishing concern. Tonight, playing here in the faded splendor of Paris’ Bataclan, they compliment perfectly Plant’s roaming musical agenda.

Arriving on stage to Link Wray’s “Rumble”, the band are all dressed in dark colours – black or navy – save Plant who wears a brown striped shirt with bold collars, blue jeans and cowboy boots. The stage is principally Plant’s to command – though he has tough competition from Justin Adams, his adjutant in the Space Shifters. Adams is a very mobile performer: he adopts a kind of simian-like crouch with his guitar aimed out at the crowd and bounces round the stage. Adams is particularly active on “Tin Pan Valley” – an early highlight – that finds Plant almost static at the centre of the stage as Adams and his fellow guitarist Liam “Skin” Tyson twirl round him, energetically trading chunky riffs. I remember seeing Plant and the Space Shifters at the Royal Albert Hall last October, and much the same thing happened then: Plant almost removed himself from the proceedings on occasion as the performances became increasingly dynamic. There is much to be said, too, about the ebullient presence of Juldeh Camara, a man who seems to be permanently beaming as he plays his ritti – a single-stringed fiddle – or his two-stringed kologo banjo on half a dozen songs in the set, adding an extra layer to the celebratory atmosphere.

There are new songs, too. Sandwiched between “Black Dog” – charged with the deepest West African rhythms – and an intimate and surprisingly faithful version of “Going To California”, we get “Rainbow”, from Plant and the Space Shifters’ new album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar. Carried along on Adams’ keening guitar riff and droning keyboard melodies, in its live version it’s accompanied by the majority of the band beating out tight, Moroccan-influenced rhythms of hand drums. A short while later, Plant debuts “Little Maggie”, where Plant explores the congruence between Celtic folk and African music, with Tyson’s banjo playing echoed in Camara’s ritti, both downhome and mystical. Fortuitously, both songs sit comfortably alongside the more established material in the set.

And what of that established material? Of course, Plant has frequently proven himself to be a sly reinventor of his back catalogue, as anyone who saw the Band Of Joy interpretations of “Misty Mountain Hop” or “Houses Of The Holy” will attest. While “Black Dog” is given yet another unexpected twist, this time dubwise (last time I saw them do it, they incorporated nimble African grooves), it’s interesting to see how true to the original recording tonight’s take on “Whole Lotta Love” is. The riff is thrillingly intact – causing much uproar from this up-for-it French audience – although Plant and his cohorts can’t entirely resist a sightseeing trip round the deep desert for a bar or two. Plant’s voice, incidentally, is amazing here: he really let’s rip, far more so than at the Albert Hall show. It’s admittedly just a fancy, but you can’t help thinking he’s changeling the spirit of the younger man who played up the road at l’Olympia 45 years ago. They encore with an incantatory “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” before Plant admits that for all his forward-looking questing, there is still the occasional moment where it is acceptable to lean back into the past, and we are treated to a long, searing version of “Rock & Roll”.

When the lights come up and the band take their bows, it’s clear that Plant, once again, has been invigorated. Of course, even from the earliest days of his career, Plant has been intellectually and musically exploratory. The Sensational Space Shifters, and their sonic inventions, fit comfortably in among the many other gifted and sympathetic fellow adventurers who have accompanied Plant on his remarkable journeys through the years. As this latest endeavour keenly demonstrates, the questing spirit in Robert Plant is as strong as ever.

Robert Plant and The Sensational Space Shifters played:

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You
Tin Pan Valley
Spoonful
Black Dog
Rainbow
Going To California
The Enchanter
Little Maggie
What Is And What Should Never Be
Funny In My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ To Die)
Whole Lotta Love
Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down
Rock & Roll

Read more at Robert Plant And The Sensational Space Shifters, Le Bataclan, Paris, June 22, 2014 - Uncut.co.uk
 

Hurdy Gurdy Man

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How did Bonham manage up on stage.Was he as crisp as ever behind the ol' drum kit or did he seem a bit out of sorts as he was struggling with alcohol addiction at the time?
 

gcczep

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Bonham

How did Bonham manage up on stage. Was he as crisp as ever behind the ol' drum kit or did he seem a bit out of sorts as he was struggling with alcohol addiction at the time?
Bonham was an alcoholic at the time. He drank but it escalated later on. I did not hear of any reports that he other dependencies. During that particular tour there was one gig in Nuremberg where he collapsed after a drinking bout though it was reported it had something to do with bad bananas he ate.
 

Vehicle

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Bonham was an alcoholic at the time. He drank but it escalated later on. I did not hear of any reports that he other dependencies. During that particular tour there was one gig in Nuremberg where he collapsed after a drinking bout though it was reported it had something to do with bad bananas he ate.


Speaking for all the 'functioning drunks' out there, it's quite possible to go to work, sober (well, hung over), everyday, do your job, never make a mistake, and get a 5 star performance review every six months.

I'm happy to report that in the nearly 12 years since I quit drinking, I've made mistakes, and because of those mistakes, I've also not received a 5 star performance evaluation (plenty of 4s, though. I do have my pride)

I've called off for holidays, my kids' school events, and sometimes for no other reason than I just didn't feel like going in that day. :)

Haven't had a hangover, either.:gig
 

electric funeral

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Any thougts about the re-issues? I listened to LedZep I and II. I did not like the songs, the originals sound better and more enthusiastic and with better sound qualty. They just sound more intense!!
 

gcczep

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Your take, my take... :)

Any thougts about the re-issues? I listened to LedZep I and II. I did not like the songs, the originals sound better and more enthusiastic and with better sound qualty. They just sound more intense!!
Interesting... I felt that the vinyl sounded good. I thought the overall sound had a bit more body to it...weight even. Maybe because my originals by comparison are old and has had wear to them.
 

electric funeral

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That IS interesting G. Weight was the word I was looking for. The original albums have more weight for me.
 

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